


Jilted

by BlueNightmare



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Bondage, Coercion, F/F, Female My Unit | Reflet | Robin, Gags, Kidnapping, Loss of Control, Nipple Clamps, Non-Consensual Kissing, Torture, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 14:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11625033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNightmare/pseuds/BlueNightmare
Summary: Tharja's lust for Robin and her jealousy of the lady tactician's lover, Lissa, finally take control of the sorceress.





	1. Chapter 1

"Lissa, I know you're in here."

The heavy folds of the canvas tent settled into place behind Robin as she moved inside, her calm brown eyes scanning her lantern-lit surroundings as if she were surveying a battlefield. Tense hands lowered the hood of her patterned black robe to grant her a better view, her long silver hair falling to her shoulders in neat tails as she stepped towards the central pole of her temporary home and shook her head in annoyance.

"This is not a productive use of my time, Lissa," she called, barely keeping the weary irritation from her voice as she peered behind the tent's sparse furniture in search of the feisty princess. She had to be in here _somewhere_. "You know I have battle plans to devise tonight. I can't very well concentrate on them when I know you're in here waiting to spring out at any moment."

Not that a surprise attack from her bright-spirited lover would have been _entirely_ unwelcome, but the whole army was depending on Robin to keep her head on straight tonight. She needed silence and solitude, hence the isolation of her tent from the rest of the camp - a fact that she had _thought_ Lissa had understood until a minute ago, when the dark mage Tharja had reported spying the irrepressible princess scurry inside when she thought nobody was looking.

Tharja's motives for letting the cat out of the bag aside - almost certainly born from sullen jealousy of the woman who had claimed Robin's heart - the tactician had _almost_ been swayed by the idea of a night-time visit from Lissa, but by the time she had parted from the tattling sorceress's company, her iron discipline had reasserted control over her baser instincts. Any lingering thoughts of pinning her cheeky lover down and ''reprimanding'' her for her irresponsible behavior would have to wait for another night.

_I'd prefer not to have to explain to Chrom I was unable to form a proper battle plan because I was too busy bending his sister over the storage crate and-_

Gods, she was doing it again! Shaking her head to clear it of such sordid thoughts, Robin turned her eyes towards the very storage crate that had featured in her fantasy, sitting at the far side of the tent. The large wooden box, used to transport her possessions when the army moved camp, was one of the few places in her tent that she hadn't yet searched, and while she wouldn't have expected a girl who was still afraid of the dark to conceal herself in such a place, Lissa was still finding ways to surprise Robin even six months into their relationship. After all, she wouldn't have even thought that Lissa had the patience for hiding herself away like this...

Trying not to be too impressed, Robin took a moment to compose a stern expression, one that she hoped would stand up to Lissa's twinkling eyes and sunny laughter without melting into a goofy grin of her own. Thus fortified, she crept across the tent to the crate, reached for the heavy lid of the crate and began to slowly ease the splintery panel to the side, waiting for the inevitable protest.

Just as she had anticipated, a squeak of shock issued from the darkness within.

Robin's poker face threatened to crack, but the silver-haired tactician somehow managed to keep her stoic mask in place as she peered through the gap she had made. Allowing her vision to adjust to the lack of light inside the wooden box, she drew in breath to deliver the admonishment she'd mentally rehearsed from the moment Tharja had spilled the princess' secret...

But when her eyes located Lissa's, she found them filled not with mirth, but with tears.

_What...?_

The princess of Ylisse was indeed inside the box, just as Robin had expected, but it was immediately obvious that she hadn't climbed inside of her own free will. The face that jerked up to meet Robin's horrified stare was damp and fearful, her lips forcibly parted around a thick knot of cloth, a dirty scarf tied tight around her head to keep the bulge in its place. Beneath the familiar nest of blonde hair in its usual unruly pigtails, the tactician could make out a messy web of coarse brown rope wrapped around Lissa's frilly white bodice, pinning her arms against her back and spiraling down into the shadows within...

She couldn't see everything, but enough to make her heart lurch.

_"Lissa!"_

All rational thought fled from her head at the sight of her lover's tear-streaked face. Battlefield mastermind or not, when her Lissa was in distress Robin could scarcely think about anything else - therein lay half of the reason she refused to send her anywhere near the front lines of combat - and now was no different. Her usually brilliant tactical mind considered none of the hows and the whys of the situation, her body practically moving on its own as she heaved the lid over the far edge of the crate and leaned down to tug at the knotted scarf in Lissa's straining mouth.

Perhaps if she had not been so focused on her girlfriend's plight, she might have paid mind to the wide-eyed fright on the blonde girl's face. She might have heard the mute click of nearing footsteps behind her back, or felt the movement of air against her skin before it was too late.

She didn't, and her gasp of shock sealed her fate.

A firm hand clamped itself over Robin's face from behind, forcing a sodden cloth over her mouth and nose, and by the time she realised she was under attack she had already inhaled a lungful of sweet-smelling vapours, leaving her dizzy before she could even fight back. She screamed, struggled, but the rag clamped over her face and the arm hooked around her waist and elbows kept her subdued while the drug worked its magic. By the time the stab of primal panic wore off and the gears within the tactician's mind began to turn, she was already out of options.

The arm dragged her backwards, away from the crate and Lissa, and it was all she could do to stumble along in her assailant's wake as her consciousness sank into a mire of wavering, blurry grey. No strategy could save her when her head felt as heavy as a blacksmith's anvil and her limbs as if they'd been turn to lifeless clay.

_No... Lissa..._

No matter how hard she fought to cling to consciousness, every thought danced out of her grasp before she could process it to completion. Reeling from the drug's powerful effects, she sank back into her assailant's chest, limply gasping for air through the cloth and finding only nauseating sweetness.

I can't...

Her mind was slipping away by the second, her body sinking to the floor, but the unexpected warmth of large, soft mounds pressing against her shoulder-blades startled her out of her stupor for just long enough to lay eyes on the figure looming above her. Glossy midnight hair fanned around a pale, shadowed face as Tharja gazed lovingly back at her, her normally frowning lips twisted into a jagged smile, the blood-chilling intensity in her shadowed eyes commanding Robin to surrender to sleep's embrace.

The tactician's eyes fluttered shut, and the muffled pleas of her beloved Lissa chased her into her dreams.

~ ~ ~

"Wake up, my love..."

Robin's eyelids twitched.

The vivid dance of orange candlelight against the ceiling greeted her slowly opening eyes, making her squint against the aggressively bright glare as her aching brain put itself back together. Her head felt like it had been cracked in two, pounding and throbbing against her skull, but Robin did her best to ignore it and clawed her way back to consciousness, blearily remembering the battle plan she still needed to form before the morrow...

Wait. Who had said that?

It hadn't been Lissa's lively voice that had woken her, but the words _my love_ lingered in Robin's mind and the seeming contradiction stirred her out of her drowsy stupor. Her brow furrowed in confusion, the tactician blinked away the grit in her eyes and tried to sit upright...

Only to find her arms pinned taut against her back, her every attempt to move them rewarded with a grinding, biting pain.

Bound. She was bound. The realization wiped away the last vestiges of sleep and brought memories of ambushes and sweet-smelling cloth crashing back into Robin's head. All of her dormant senses flared to life at once, detecting chafing tightness all over her body from her ankles to her thighs to her chest, a thick wad of soggy cloth jammed on top of her tongue, the soft rasp of a plush rug against skin that should _really_ not be bare... and an unfamiliar room, with a rather more familiar figure standing over her, eerily silhouetted against the flickering dance of pungent candles.

"Welcome back," Tharja crooned, a pallid finger pressed against her shyly smiling lips.

The steadily-flickering candlelight gave the mage an almost unearthly appearance, the golden adornments all over her body gleaming bright, her glossy black hair and form-fitting body-stocking gently reflecting the fire's warm glow. The sheer nylon suit hugged her every curve from the low-cut bodice that barely contained the swells of her full breasts to the tips of her toes in their strict metal heels, clinging tight to her toned legs and shapely hips, with only a frugal loincloth draped between her thighs to hide what lay between. Her scandalous attire was the same as always, sensuous and deliberately revealing, but for the first time Robin found herself staring rather than averting her eyes.

What had once been merely inappropriate now left her deeply unnerved.

"Look all you want, my sweet Robin." Tharja's drooping bangs concealed the top half of her face in shadow, but Robin could see her lips pursing enticingly as she lowered herself to her knees beside the helpless tactician, extending her fingers towards her prisoner's hair, capturing a silvery pigtail between talon-like nails and running the soft strands through her fingertips. "I've waited a long time for you to look at me like this."

Robin jerked away from the unwanted touch, but the rope knotted around her body immediately punished her for daring to move, scything painfully into her arms and biting into her chest from every angle. Her startled yelp was swallowed by the rags stuffed inside her mouth, tears springing to her eyes as she tried to work out what was going on with an experimental tug that only hurt her more. As Tharja looked on with sadistic amusement, Robin painstakingly deduced that the bonds pinning her arms flat against her back were connected to a tight harness of ropes woven all the way around her torso, a network that moved in concert to squeeze her breasts in its merciless grasp if she so much as twitched her shoulders.

Reality dawning on her, she forced herself to look down at her chest for the first time, trying and failing to ignore the sight of her naked breasts as she analyzed her situation. Just as she had suspected, a tense net of rope encircled her bust - her naked bust - hitching beneath her vulnerable mounds and hauling them upward and outward. The reserved tactician flushed at the humiliating sight, cringing in revulsion as Tharja chuckled at her discomfort, but she made herself continue her analysis while she had the chance, letting her eyes wander further down her nude, aching body. Even her panties had been removed, but that part of her anatomy remained otherwise unmolested, the next signs of rope visible around her thighs, then her knees and her ankles, pressing her legs together so tightly that parting them even a fraction was beyond her.

She was helpless, naked and in the clutches of a woman who had made her unhealthy obsession with her very well known.

_I trusted you. I see now that I shouldn't have._

The question was, what was she going to do now? Her initial experimentation with the ropes had shown her no weaknesses, every knot and coil tied with expert precision to keep her trapped and immobile. Trying to talk sense into the leering witch was impossible with her mouth stuffed full of saliva-soaked cloth, and no amount of prodding it with her tongue had budged it. Something thin was biting into the corners of her lips, and she could feel a knot at the back of her head, surely some sort of band keeping the stuffing between her lips. Magic was out with no access to her tome, and the hungry look on Tharja's pale, lustful face left her with no hope that she was about to let her go...

All she could do was pray that somebody would notice that she was missing. Chrom, or Frederick, or Lissa...

_...Lissa?_

The realization struck her like a lightning bolt, hard and fast and leaving her reeling. Lissa! What had happened to Lissa?! She had been tied up and shoved into the storage crate in her tent, but then... then _what?!_ Had Tharja hurt her? Worse?

She had to know, but with her voice muffled beneath a fist-sized wad of cloth, there was no asking.

Lissa was the last person on Tharja's mind as she let the silver strands of Robin's hair fall back to the rug, her normally grim face beaming as she tilted her head closer to the candlelight. "I've always dreamed of having you like this, you know. Of course, I thought you might consent first, but I'll take what I can get."

Robin's poisonous glare conveyed the disgusted hatred her gagged mouth could not.

She would never, _never_ have consented to this. Not with _her_. The dark mage's painfully obvious crush on her had made her uncomfortable, her longing stares and muttered advances leaving Robin trying to avoid her whenever she could, and though she had to admit that Tharja possessed a magnificent figure now that there was no looking away from her nylon-sheathed body, her affections left Robin more repulsed than ever. Beautiful or not, Robin had only ever been able to see her as a gloomy, borderline-malicious witch, and now all of her subconscious suspicions about her were bubbling to the surface.

"Hmph." Tharja was more put out by Robin's glare of rejection than the tactician had expected, but she recovered from her sulking fit in record time. "I'm sure I can change your mind. It might take a little of _this_ and a little of _that_ , but you'll come around."

Robin almost choked on her gag. With Tharja, 'this' and 'that' could have meant anything at all.

"Don't be shy." Tilting her face away from the candlelight once again, Tharja let her face be swallowed by shadow as she climbed on top of Robin's immobilised body, straddling her and pushing her down into the carpet. Warm flesh rubbed itself against her belly with only the rasp of thin nylon to muddy the sensation, the dark mage's large breasts hanging temptingly in front of her face, threatening to spring loose of their tiny confines. Hot, sour breath swept against Robin's face as Tharja loomed over her like a thundercloud, licking her lips, devouring her with her voracious stare.

Struggling was fruitless. Struggling would only hurt her. Her body flushing with a desire her mind rejected, Robin forced herself to think logically, clinging desperately to the battlefield brain that was her greatest asset. She wanted _out_ of this, needed distance between herself and Tharja as badly as she needed air, but trying to get away would only invite punishment from the ropes that clutched her. She would have to ignore her instincts and use her head if she wanted to stand a chance.

Processing rational thought was already hard enough with Tharja's bosom practically shoved in her face, filling her vision with soft, heaving flesh, but the sudden, forceful push of warm lips against her own sent all else flying out of her head.

The witch was kissing her.

The thick wad of cloth that stopped Tharja from shoving her tongue down Robin's throat was the only thing that prevented the tactician from retching, smothering her scream of outrage to a dismal squeak. The dark mage's mouth clamped over hers as if she meant to suck the life from her prey, her lips hot and wet and greedy, smearing saliva over the silver-haired girl's face and the outside of her gag as she took what she pleased from the object of her lust. Her whole body cleaved to Robin's, her large breasts overwhelming the other girl's smaller bust, her thighs locking over her victim's hips and pinning her against the carpet with the strength of a woman possessed.

There was no escape, no relief, and Robin could feel her body reacting to the other woman's attentions despite her efforts to ignore the mage's touch. Her breasts were sensitive thanks to the chafing squeeze of the ropes, and Tharja preyed on them as if she knew, pressing her own firmly against them as she undulated against her victim. The dark mage's hardened nipples were noticeable through her bodice without Robin even needing to look, the stiff little peaks constantly rubbing at her amidst the perpetual movement of skin and nylon against skin, the sensations all the more acute for her unwillingness to open her eyes and look Tharja in the face...

Finally the sorceress' lips parted from hers, the vulgar smacking sound making Robin cringe, her face damp with saliva she was powerless to wipe away. Seconds passed in silence, the mage's weight never shifting from on top of her, until she finally dared to crack her eyes open and look up at the ghoulish mage's scowling face.

"You could at least pretend to enjoy it."

Robin couldn't hold back a scream of molten fury, but her gag did an admirable job of muffling it. _Pretend?!_ Why should she pretend she was _enjoying_ being molested against her will?! Why should she give the delusional witch the pleasure of thinking she _liked_ what was being done to her? It was easier to think straight without Tharja's lips pressed against her mouth, without a nylon-sheathed body dancing sinuously against her own, but all of the brain space she might have devoted to plotting her escape was instead consumed by disgust, violation and white-hot anger. How dare she? How _dare_ she?!

"Well, I didn't really expect it to be that easy." Paying no mind to Robin's livid snarls, Tharja began to slide backwards, working her way down the tactician's naked body before rising into a crouch over her squirming feet. "You're really stuck on that empty-headed princess, aren't you?" she murmured disdainfully, watching the silver-haired girl's red-faced huffs as warmly as if expected a loving smile in return. "At first I thought you were ignoring me because you needed a man... I even acquired a few toys for the eventuality... but when I saw you with _her_ , I knew we had a chance."

The expression on her pale features softened, just a little... then contorted in a fit of hate-fueled rage. The sorceress launched herself back at Robin, snatching at her scalp with a clawing hand and fisting her fingers in neat silver locks, wresting the tactician's head up from the rug with a savage yank. Muffled shrieks went ignored as Tharja hauled Robin into a sitting position by her hair alone, showing no care for the pain of the woman she claimed to love.

"I knew you could love me if only I dealt with her first."

_Dealt with...?_ Robin's blood turned to ice water, the stinging pain in her scalp instantly forgotten. All she could think of was the last thing she had seen before Tharja's soporific ambush - her beloved Lissa's face gagged and terrified and streaked with tears. If Tharja was insane enough to think that _this_ was a good idea, then what had she done with... _No, no no no no-_

"Oh, don't give me that look." Tharja rolled her eyes, lips tight with disapproval. "She's still alive and well... mm, _alive_ , anyway. The last thing I need is your prince even angrier at me than he will be when he finds out I've taken his strategist. Lucky for me you made sure to let the whole camp know not to bother you tonight."

The ropes strangling her chest hadn't loosened in the least, but Robin felt as if a weight had fallen from her heart. Lissa was alive. This was still very, very bad, but the worst hadn't happened yet. Tharja hadn't sunken _that_ low.

"Don't worry. The princess will leave this place on her own two feet when I'm done with her... although not _entirely_ unhurt." Tharja smiled knowingly, hooking a finger against her lips. "You and I will see to that."


	2. Chapter 2

The cellar was wide and drafty, the night’s cold breeze infiltrating the tiny air vents set into the grim stone walls, but the light of the three large candles set into the golden candelabra by the staircase provided just enough light to chase off the shadows and just enough heat to keep the shivers away, a small blessing in an otherwise frightening predicament.

Lissa took comfort from their flickering presence, for there were few other comforts to be had.

Tharja had sent her to sleep mere moments after subduing Robin, and when she had awoken from her drugged slumber Lissa had found herself alone in this dismal place, her back pressing against what she had surmised to be the cellar’s support pole at the center of the empty chamber. There had been no sign of the dark mage, nor of Robin, but it hadn’t taken the Ylissean princess long to discern what had happened while she was unconscious, and that no miracle had saved her in her sleep.

She was restrained, and there was no doubt in her mind that Tharja was responsible.

The same thin, rough rope that had bound her arms against her back earlier that night was now wound tight about her wrists and the pole behind her, keeping them crossed above her head and pinned firmly against the pillar no matter how hard she fought to twist them loose. The blonde girl rested her weight on her knees, her bare kneecaps digging shallow pits into the moist dirt floor, her ankles spread to either side of the pole and lashed there with additional ropes to ensure that her legs would remain apart. There was no budging from this position - minutes spent in painful, fruitless effort had taught her that - and as the seconds ticked by and nobody descended the stone stairs to her right, she began to turn her attention to other things to distract herself from her growing discomfort.

The realization that she was not entirely dressed was one of her less pleasant discoveries. Little details that she hadn’t immediately noticed in her panic, like the squish of the dirt against her knees and the kiss of cold air against her thighs, had come into greater focus as she looked down at herself and found her cleric’s dress missing, leaving her in only the sheer silken basque and snug white panties she had worn beneath and her familiar head-dress. She wasn’t _naked_ , not quite, but the skimpy, lacy lingerie showed off more of her breasts and her midriff than she was comfortable with, and the notion that Tharja had undressed her in her sleep made her skin crawl and her stomach squirm into knots.

The question of just _what_ the witch meant to do with her had occurred to Lissa then, and she had thought of little else since. There were no convenient distractions in this dim cellar, nobody to talk to, nothing to look at, only the ache of muscles trapped in awkward positions and a rabbit hole of worries she couldn’t help but plumb. Where was Robin? What was going to happen to them? What if Tharja was just going to leave her here?

A sniffle broke the silence, but Lissa blinked back her fearful tears before they could fall. This wasn’t the time for crying. ...Well, it was, but she refused, telling herself it was for Robin’s sake as she forced herself to hold together. What if her lover came to rescue her and found her weeping like a child? The last thing she wanted was to make Robin worry for her. Yes, she had to be strong, like her sister would have been. Emmeryn wouldn’t cry now, not when any minute Robin could-

As if on cue, the heavy oaken door at the top of the stairs swung open with an ear-piercing creak.

“Robin...?” Lissa squinted against the candlelight, her heart leaping, the name leaving her lips before she knew she had spoken it. A part of her knew it wasn’t going to be her, knew it was going to be that creepy _witch_ instead...

In the end, both instincts were correct.

The first one to descend the staircase was indeed Robin, but the silver-haired tactician was clearly not doing so of her own free will, and she was in no position to respond to Lissa’s call as the princess’ heart sank to the pit of her stomach. Naked and bound, her entire body crisscrossed with a tight net of ropes, Robin stumbled down the stairs with the grace of a dizzy elephant, her legs constrained at thigh and knee to limit her steps to ungainly shuffles. A thin strip of leather was tied around her head, passing between her lips and holding a large wad of cloth inside her mouth, muffling her cry of outrage as she laid eyes on her helpless lover.

A mere step behind Robin on the staircase, Tharja pitilessly urged her prisoner onward, one hand gripping the collection of knots at the tactician’s back both to steady her and to keep her moving. Wraith-like in the candlelight, her black cloak and blacker hair violently contrasting her deathly-pale skin, the witch glared at Lissa as she descended, her dark eyes glittering in the candlelight as fiercely as her golden jewelry. She was malice incarnate, almost a different woman entirely, and for a moment Lissa considered whether she might have been a foul Risen wearing her former comrade like a shell. She had never shared Robin’s suspicions about the admittedly odd Plegian mage before now, and she still found it hard to believe that Tharja could do something like this to them.

But no. As ghoulish as she appeared, Tharja was still very much alive and in complete control of herself as she shoved Robin from the base of the stairs towards the centre of the cellar, watching her stumble and drop to her knees mere feet away from her immobilized lover. To all outward appearances the tactician was as composed as ever, seemingly unconcerned by her nudity and the ropes wrapped tight around her compacted body, but Lissa knew that Robin was faking it, concealing her emotions behind her calculating facade. It had taken Lissa months to learn to see through it, but once she had, it could no longer convince her as it once had.

She knew that her love was just as frightened as she was, and just as powerless to save herself.

“What do you want...?” she found it in herself to ask, though it came out as more of a miserable whine than a demand for answers. Bound on her knees in nothing more than her frilly delicates, her wrists fastened above her head and her legs held apart, Lissa had never felt more fragile in her life, and she hated it. “Tharja... let us go. I thought you were on our side.”

“Sorry, but I’m on _my_ side.” Swaying steps brought the dark mage closer, her hand idly running through Robin’s silver hair as the tactician tried to flinch away. “Someone has to be. Not even my sweet Robin has my back, after everything we’ve been through...”

Robin’s eyes slid closed as Tharja toyed with her neat platinum pigtails, the silent disgust on her face as she endured the witch’s unwelcome touch igniting Lissa’s more violently protective instincts. A part of it was jealousy even if she wouldn’t admit it to herself - Robin was _hers_ to touch, not Tharja’s! - but it was her beloved’s distress that pricked at her gentle heart the most and made her long to make the Plegian _pay_. Between the amnesia, the continued distrust of some of their more cautious comrades and the seemingly endless wars, Robin had suffered through more than enough. She didn’t deserve... _this_. “Leave her alone!”

Tharja’s hand froze in mid-stroke, and she withdrew it with a poisonous smile. “Aren’t we protective?” she murmured as Robin’s pigtails fell back into place, chuckling at the dark look on the tactician’s face as her brown eyes narrowed. “Well, we’ll see how long that lasts.”

Arching golden heels crunched softly against the dirt floor, bringing Tharja to Lissa’s side. “The three of us are going to play a game,” she explained, dropping into a crouch beside the barely dressed princess, staring at her with an intensity that she had previously reserved for Robin. She made no move to touch her, for which Lissa was profoundly grateful, but her sullen glare alone was enough to make Lissa wish she could flinch away. “Robin claims to love you. We’re going to find out if that’s true, aren’t we, Robin?”

Lissa glanced back at Robin in confusion, but the silver-haired girl seemed just as confused as she. “What are you talking about?” she dared ask in her lover’s place, her voice shaking more than she had wanted. Of course Robin loved her. There was no doubt in her mind of that.

“Let me explain.” Just like that, Tharja slipped out of Lissa’s sight, and with her outstretched arms blocking her peripheral vision, the princess’ eyes couldn’t follow the witch as she moved behind her back. From her own position Robin could still keep watch on Tharja’s movements, but Lissa was left only with the Plegian mage’s voice and the damp scuffling sound of heels against soil. “I’m going to test you to see if you really do love each other as much as you say. I have some questions for the two of you, and it’s going to be very... interesting to hear your answers.”

_What the heck?!_ Still not understanding, Lissa looked to Robin in desperation, but all that she found on the normally calm woman’s face was dread.

That was the most frightening thing of all. Before now, no matter how bad things had become, Robin had always had the answers. She had been ceaselessly brilliant, a rock amidst the storm, and Lissa had come to depend on her as much as anybody else among the Shepherds. Now that safety net had fallen away, revealed for the illusion it was. Robin had no more power to save the day than Lissa did.

Robin must have known what she was thinking. The shame in the tactician’s eyes as she lowered her head made Lissa wish she’d never looked.

Tharja returned moments later, but it was the box in her arms that attracted the attention of both Lissa and Robin. Rectangular, a foot in width and several in length, it was made of a dark wood varnished to catch the candlelight, a hinged lid at the top concealing what lay within. Noting the anxiety on the faces of her captives, Tharja chuckled dryly as she sat the box down on the dirt floor between them, a few inches to Lissa’s right and Robin’s left. “Now then...”

Another footstep and the dark mage’s fingers were entwined with Robin’s hair once again, her painted, pointed fingernails raking through the silvery strands, eagerly brushing and stroking as the girl beneath was forced to bear it. Her other hand dipped behind the tactician’s head, ably working free the knot in the leather band and tugging it loose from her head, then flitting around to pluck at the thick mass of cloth between her lips and tugging the whole sodden heap from her mouth. “Not that we didn’t have _fun_ before,” she went on, drowning out Robin’s coughing, gasping breaths, “but I could use another kiss. A proper one, this time.”

_Another one...?_ Lissa seethed. The idea that Tharja had taken advantage of Robin beyond stripping her naked _had_ occurred to her, but she hadn’t really let herself think about it until now. Her blood boiled as her imagination went wild without her consent, needling her with a new lurid scenario with every passing moment-

“So, who’s the lucky girl going to be?” Tharja remained ignorant of the kaleidoscope of emotions placing over Lissa’s face; her attention was entirely fixed on Robin. “You can choose. Her, or you?”

_The kiss. Right._ In that moment of madness, Lissa had already forgotten Tharja’s demand. Revulsion overcame her at the thought of being made to lock lips with her, but seeing her force a kiss on Robin instead would hardly be any better...

But... wait. Tharja was _asking?_ She’d figured the witch would just force her tongue down Robin’s throat at the earliest opportunity, but...

Robin was similarly confused by the question, but she recovered much faster than Lissa. “You’re... asking me?”

“That’s right. It’s your choice. I kiss her, or I kiss you. No third options, so don’t get clever.” Tharja crossed her arms, a pointed nail tapping against her elbow as if to count the seconds. “And there had better not be any resistance if you plan on walking out of here alive. Now hurry up and choose.”

“Why are you doing this?” If there was one thing Robin hated, it was having her options taken away, and now she was only given two? Her strategic mind refused to accept it, demanded she find a different path, and with her legs hobbled and her arms tied behind her back, her tongue was her only remaining weapon. If she could find a weak point and expose it with words alone, she could get them out of this. “You don’t have to-“

“If you don’t choose _right now_ , I’ll do it to the both of you,” Tharja interrupted with the sharp finality of a falling guillotine. “It’s just a kiss. If you’re stuck on this, just wait until we get to the less pleasant questions. _Choose._ ”

_Less pleasant...?_ So it was only going to get worse from there? Maybe she should have expected that, Lissa thought; after all, Tharja had taken the time to strip her to her underwear and divest poor Robin of even that privilege. What else could have motivated her than base lust? Did that mean the witch desired her as well, or was she just using her to hurt Robin? How far was she going to go?

“...Me.” Her face lowered in shame, silver bangs hiding her eyes from Lissa and Tharja alike, Robin choked out the word as if she were granting permission for her own execution. “I’ll do it. Just... get it over with.”

“Hm.” Offering no further commentary, no sign if she were pleased or dismayed, Tharja approached the naked tactician and dropped to her knees in the dirt beside her, grasping the other girl’s lowered chin and lifting it with a pointed fingertip. Robin clamped her eyelids shut at once, preferring to be blind than to look Tharja in the face, but it was not her eyes that Tharja had been seeking. The witch’s lips swooped in to claim their prize, clamping fiercely over Robin’s mouth as if it were her possession, and this time there was no gag to separate them as she plunged her greedy tongue deep inside, her hands clutching around the silver-haired woman’s cheeks to deny her head the slightest movement.

And she _was_ trying to move it - even with the dark mage’s cloaked form blocking half of her view, Lissa could see that her lover was struggling against the unwanted kiss. Robin’s face was hidden from view behind a curtain of oily black hair, but she could see the tactician’s bare arms straining against her ropes as Tharja pressed the kiss, and the muffled grunts she could make out beneath the wet smacking of lips and the witch’s lewdly satisfied groans were hardly born of pleasure. Her Robin was loathing every lingering second of Tharja’s feverishly amorous attentions, and no matter how sharply Lissa twisted her wrists against the tight, skin-grinding cords that bound them over her head, she was powerless to save her lover from the Plegian’s persistent lips.

When the witch finally broke the kiss, rocking back on her haunches and licking her lips clean of Robin’s taste, Robin did the opposite. She spat, spraying the mixture of their saliva into the dirt before her knees, the fury in her dark eyes as she lifted her head to glare at Tharja daring the mage to retaliate.

Tharja glared right back at her, staring balefully into Robin’s very soul until the tactician had no choice but to turn her gaze away. The shame and disgust on her beloved’s contorted face made Lissa want to run to her and bury her in reassuring hugs, but movement was beyond her now, and if there were words she could speak to make her Robin’s pain fade away, she had never learned them.

Robin wouldn’t even _look_ at her, but Tharja was a different story.

The witch’s laugh was unsettlingly uneven as she climbed to her feet, sauntering away from Robin as thoughtlessly as if she were a discarded tissue. Her full attention was now fixed on Lissa for the first time since the witch had abducted her from her tent, and the shaking princess felt a new wave of anxiety swell within her chest as the mage came to a halt right in front of her, bending her body forward at her hips to bring her face within an inch of Lissa’s, their noses a hair’s breadth from touching. She reeked of musky sweat and Robin’s clinging scent, and for a long moment Lissa was left to wonder if Tharja meant to force a kiss on her as well, the very notion making her purse her mouth tight and tilt her face into the side of her arm. No, no, _no_. Her kisses were for Robin alone.

Yet when Tharja’s lips finally moved, it wasn’t to set themselves in a pucker or to part around a probing tongue, but to whisper words into Lissa’s ear that made her innocent eyes pop open.

_“Now it’s your turn to make a choice.”_


	3. Chapter 3

Fingertips stroked warm trails down Lissa’s pale cheek, elongated nails rasping against the princess’ soft skin from her temple to her trembling chin. Lips wet with Robin's saliva grazed against the edge of her ear, whispering poison within.

_"One of you is about to feel some pain."_

Lissa gasped, her bright blue eyes full of fear as they stared back at Tharja's malice-curdled features. The dark mage was smiling a crooked, wicked smile, her face gaunt and pale but undeniably lovely, her eyes lost in the shadows of her oily black bangs, but Lissa could feel the intensity of her baleful glare. Satisfied with the terror she had inspired, Tharja rose back to her full height, standing over the bound, kneeling princess and breathing an uneven chuckle. "So? Who will it be? You, or our darling Robin?"

The question Lissa had been dreading finally came, and her lower lip shook as she weighed up two possibilities she didn't even want to consider. She had never liked pain. Not that most people _did_ , but she had dedicated herself to the healing arts, and the idea of willingly inflicting pain on somebody she loved left her feeling disgusted with herself simply for considering it... but the notion of suffering herself frightened her, and knowing how much Tharja resented her didn't help.

"...What are you going to do?" she ventured, stalling more than anything. Awareness of exactly what was coming would only make her choice harder, she knew, even if she already knew what she would need to say in return.

Tharja offered no immediate answer, simply glaring down at Lissa with contempt. When she did eventually deign to reply, it was with a heavy sigh and a scornful sneer. "Nothing that will cause permanent damage. Nothing that will render you unconscious. I just want a scream and a tear or two."

That wasn't a real answer, but Lissa wanted one even less after that. Dread rushed in to engulf her, and she bit her lip, trying to steal a peek at Robin and finding only Tharja's heavy black cloak, the thick fabric a curtain between the princess and her lover. "Um... I..."

"Well?" Tharja clicked her tongue. "You? Robin? Or must I punish you both?"

"No!" The word burst from Lissa's mouth, and she jerked in her ropes as if she had hoped to rise in protest, though the tight, thin ropes around her wrists, ankles and the pole at her back kept her on her knees in the damp dirt, right where Tharja wanted her. She swallowed, afraid of what was coming but knowing that she would have to bear it. She couldn't let Robin get hurt. Her brilliant, beautiful lover had allowed Tharja to kiss her, despite how much it must have sickened her. Lissa couldn't back down now. "I... fine. I'll take it. I'll take whatever you've got."

“Good girl.” There was no genuine approval on the witch’s face, only disdainful mockery, and Lissa felt as if she had been manipulated into doing exactly what Tharja wanted as her tormentor moved to retrieve the glossy hinged box she had left on the floor between her captives. The swish of her cloak granted Lissa a sudden, unexpected glimpse of Robin on the other side, the silver-haired girl still on her knees, bound, naked and seething, and the sight cemented Lissa's will to spare her love any further pain. Robin had been through more than enough.

Then Tharja was standing over her once again, her cloak hiding the twin-tailed tactician from view, the box coming open in the witch's pallid palms. Dark-nailed fingers drew something from within, something shiny and metal, holding it up for Lissa and Lissa alone to see. "Do you know where this goes?"

Lissa shook her head, mystified and fearful. What was it even supposed to be? It was almost ovoid, flat and rounded, a small metal framework with a little chain dangling from the lower end, a metal sphere swinging gently beneath. Only when Tharja's fingers began to apply pressure to the edges did the mystery become clearer; at the end opposite the chain, a pair of small jaws drew open, the pads within lined with tiny, sharp teeth. Was it supposed to grab something in there? That would definitely hurt, but where...?

Tucking the box beneath an armpit, Tharja's taloned fingers swooped down, snatching at the lacy bodice of Lissa's silken basque and tearing the supporting cups below her breasts. Her bosom fell loose from its confines to the tune of Lissa's startled cry, her small but perky mounds exposed to Tharja's malevolent leer, and as the dark mage squeezed and released the sides of her strange little contraption, snapping the sharp-toothed jaws open and shut, Lissa finally understood, her heart sinking into her stomach. "W-wait!"

A fingertip and thumb closed around her left nipple, the nail grinding into the princess' areola as Tharja grasped it and plucked, pinching and tugging on the vulnerable nub. A strangled yelp flew from Lissa's throat as pain stabbed through her breast, the nauseating knowledge of what was coming quickening her breathing, and even the fierce shout of "Leave her alone!" from her helpless lover was small comfort when the menacing jaws of the sadistic clamp were closing in on her nipple, rearing to strike.

Her tender bud teased into rising, Tharja guided the nasty device into place around it, then let it snap shut.

Seeing it coming didn't make its bite any less painful, and Lissa screamed into the ceiling as the jaws clamped down on her sensitized nipple, crushing it between unyielding pads of teeth. It hurt, _ohhh it hurt_ , nothing like a sword strike or a lightning spell but precisely targeted agony localised in one of her most delicate, intimate places. There was no blood, no broken bone or seared flesh, but the relentless sting brought tears to her eyes and whimpering whines to her throat, sounds that only intensified as Tharja allowed the attached metal sphere to fall, the weight jerking on her nipple and making her gasp a sob into the musty air.

"Your pain tolerance is that low?" Unimpressed, Tharja let her fingers wander back into the box, and, to Lissa's horror, draw out a second, identical device. "You're even weaker than I thought. You don't deserve her."

This time the process was over in a flash, her other nipple swiftly roused and surrounded by vicious teeth, but that didn't make the second bite any less painful than the first.

This time, when Lissa cried out and hissed breaths through tight-clenched teeth, Robin's livid demands escalated in volume and tone, tearful epithets flying at Tharja like throwing daggers, but the dark mage merely smiled as she turned her head back to the tactician, lifting a third clamp from her wretched box. "This one is for the clitoris," she bluntly advised, delighting in the twin gasps of disgusted, sickened horror. "Do you wish to take it for her, Robin?"

"Y-yes." Robin's response was shaky but immediate, the silver-haired woman leaning forward almost eagerly, the ropes clutching her even tighter as punishment for daring to shift position. It was clear that she didn't want to be saying these words, but her eyes never left Lissa, pledging protection. "Leave Lissa alone. I'll do whatever you want."

"Mmm..." Tharja tilted her head, then, without ceremony, rounded back on Lissa, her black cloak swishing behind her nylon-hugged body. "No. The princess agreed to this. This is a part of her turn, not yours."

"I said _leave her alone_!" Robin's roar was every bit as bloodthirsty as anything Lissa had heard on a battlefield, but Tharja ignored her demand and the sounds of her futile thrashing, lowering herself to one knee in the damp soil, showing no care for the staining of her nylons as she grasped the waistband of Lissa's tight white panties and tore them down over her bent knees, tucking them between the princess' shins and the sodden dirt and darting her hand between Lissa's legs.

A lengthy, panicked grunt was all the reeling Lissa could manage as warm fingertips and smooth nails prodded and searched and found, but when they pounced and squeezed their target, a squeal of horrified denial pierced the air. Pleasure and pain shot through her as one, but all Lissa could think about was that ominous third clamp as Tharja brought it into place with one hand, her other preparing Lissa's clit with kneading, rubbing touches. It was coming, and Lissa knew it, but as sensations only Robin had ever stirred in her throbbed wantonly between her thighs, the second the clamp was out of sight she almost, almost forgot...

There would be no forgetting the blinding agony the cruel little jaws inflicted as they snapped shut around her clit, tearing a tortured scream from Lissa's lips that made Robin sob and shake.

Allowing the last sphere to fall, tumbling into the clotted muck below Lissa's hips and yanking harder on her pain-wracked nub, Tharja lifted herself to her feet and stepped aside, presenting the weeping Robin with a perfect view of her pigtailed lover. Lissa's eyes were jammed shut, tears leaking down her blushing cheeks as her body heaved with rapid breaths, twin silver spheres dangling from her bared breasts like decorative baubles, her bound hands knotted into fists above her head. She was stricken, struggling to endure, the trio of weighted clamps conspiring with gravity to pull relentlessly at her most tender regions, the tight, chafing ropes ensuring that she had no choice but to let them.

"Take them off her." It was intended to be an order, but it sounded like a plea, and Robin knew that was truly all it was. She could no more give commands than she could rush to Lissa's side and free her from the clamps herself. "Please," she added, lowering her head as much in obeisance as to rid her sight of her suffering lover. "I'm the one you want, aren't I? You... you can already do whatever you want to me. I can't resist you. Leave Lissa alone."

Tharja made her way across to the tactician, her golden heels sinking into the wet soil, her hand reaching down to cup Robin's tear-stained face. "Oh, Robin. I have so much more I want to do to her."

"Don't touch her!" All deference was gone in an instant, Robin's head swinging upwards with a murderous glare. "Don't you _touch_ her!"

“I’m going to do a whole lot more than touch her." Tharja didn't flinch at the outburst, savoring Robin's mental torment as much as if it were physical. Perhaps more. "Unless she’d like to pass it on to you, of course. _She_ will always have a choice, my dear Robin. She chose to suffer for you.”

Huffing strained breaths against her chest, Lissa squirmed in her restrictive bonds, only stopping when the silver spheres hanging from her breasts began to sway and pull painfully at her nipples. " _Nnnn..._ R-Robin... I'm okay..."

"Lissa..." Robin didn't know what else to say, and she let the sentence fall, wishing for nothing more than the freedom to wrap her brave lover in the tightest of embraces. She swallowed, drew in breath, switched her gaze to the smugly smiling Tharja instead. "Please. I'm next, aren't I? You have a choice for me, don't you?"

Tharja tilted her head, glossy black hair almost glowing orange in the radiant candlelight. "You could say that."


	4. Chapter 4

There was room in Tharja's wooden box for more than just sadistically-weighted clamps.

Her dark eyes afire with defiance, her jaw set in grim determination, Robin stared at the witch standing before her with her own face a bitter mask, cracked but not yet broken. Still bound, still naked, but standing on her own two feet for the first time in what felt like an age, she hung from the ceiling rafters by hands crossed and tethered high above her head, her soles barely able to find purchase on the damp soil floor. Strands of silver-white hair clung stubbornly to her sweat-slick forehead, once-tidy pigtails descending to bare shoulders and grazing against naked breasts as if they sought to hide them, but tight bunches of rope hugged her bust in a lurid embrace, winding around and between, lifting and plumping her bosoms beyond any hope of concealing them.

It served no purpose in restraining her now that her arms had been lifted above her, but the lingering stare and unwanted squeezes she was receiving from the gaunt little witch left her aware that the constricting arrangement was purely decorative.

The cruelly-delighted smile on Tharja's thin, pale lips didn't frighten her, but the glossy leather whip in the mage's hand was another matter.

"Very brave of you to volunteer."

The handle of the whip came up, gripped between pallid fingers, the rough black leather brought to scrape against Robin's peaking nipple. Back and forth, back and forth, she bullied the sensitive nub with the leather's rasp, a small torment but one Robin's trussed, compacted body felt keenly. "You _do_ know how much this is going to hurt, don't you?" the witch crooned into her ear, worrying the little bud without mercy, making the tactician draw a hissing breath through her teeth. "I wonder how many strokes you will endure before you beg me to take my whip to your precious Lissa instead..."

_"Never."_

The thought of the whip slicing her own skin was enough to twist Robin's stomach into fearful knots, but _Lissa's_? No. No. Her mind violently rejected the concept of bringing more pain to Lissa, sweet Lissa, trapped on her knees against the basement's support pillar, rope chafing her skin and clamps crushing her nipples... her lover, who had accepted her own torment if it meant protecting Robin...

It was hard to look at Lissa now, the younger girl's eyes and cheeks glittering with tears, the silvery weights hanging from her small breasts jerking and swaying with every twitch and hiccup, but Robin forced herself to do it, silently assuring her that she was not about to break.

"A bold statement, dear Robin." The grind of leather against her breast abruptly ceased, and Tharja seemed to glide around to Robin's back as elegantly as if she hadn't been wearing heels on wet soil. The tactician felt warm fingertips against her back, alighting on her shoulder-blade, pressing against her flesh just enough to make themselves unwelcome and make her tense for what was to come. "I wonder how much pain you can take before you betray that vow? Everyone has their limits... and I'm going to enjoy finding yours."

Fear that her voice might tremble was the only thing that stilled Robin's tongue, but Lissa filled the silence on her own, choking out words barely above a squeak in volume. "Don't. Please don't. I'll do anything you want, so please just... leave her alone..."

It stung Robin's heart to see her plucky, cheerful lover reduced to such a pitiful state, but she fought to keep herself composed, willing herself to revert to the cool-headed tactician who so effortlessly controlled entire battlefields. For Lissa's sake. She would bear this for Lissa's sake. She would hold her nerve and her tongue and take whatever pain Tharja could dish out-

A thunderous crack, and a fiery ribbon of pain blossomed across her back.

_"Nnnh!"_ The sound torn from Robin's throat was more grunt than scream, as if Tharja had merely slapped her, but the impact of the whip made Robin's body jerk violently forward, spinning her around in her restraints. She had known it would hurt, of course, but knowing it and feeling the sharp burning streak the blow had painted across her flesh were two different things, the flaring pain bringing stinging tears to her eyes and a shudder to her desperate search for breath as she steadied herself for the next assault. She had pictured herself brushing off the first strike, but if it was going to be this bad...

Somehow, the second crack of the lash caught her off guard again. It scythed around her thighs without warning, slashing deep red trails into milky-pale skin, and this time Robin had no choice but to cry out, a startled, strangled yelp that made Lissa shriek in turn. Reeling, choking back a sob, Robin dimly heard her lover's voice begging Tharja to have mercy, but the sound of the dear girl's desperate pleas was interrupted by yet another hideous snap of leather against flesh, cutting across her back in an arc once again. She staggered, barely keeping her footing, biting deep into her lower lip in a last, desperate effort to smother a heaving wail.

_G-Gods..._ It hurt. It hurt. Why did it hurt so badly? She had suffered in battle before, from spells and spears alike...

But those had been frantic, glancing blows, struck through thick layers of clothing in the heat of combat. They had been intended to kill, not precisely calculated to cause her pain, and while she had never been one for heavy armor, the absence of her comfortable robes was keenly felt. There was nothing to absorb the cutting shock of the whip but her own skin, already sensitive from the grinding kiss of rope, and the three stinging welts cut across her flesh left her on the edge of tears, her tactician's composure all but shattered.

"Stop it..." Lissa's voice was a broken whisper, the immobile princess still clearly in her share of pain, but there was steel in her eyes as she glared past Robin, her blushing, tear-streaked face twisted in righteous anger. "Stop _hurting_ her! I thought you cared about her?"

"You can care for someone and still make them scream now and then." Drawing back the hand that held the whip, readying for another brutal strike, Tharja shifted her gaze to Lissa for a long moment, her eyes twinkling maliciously in the candlelight, a resentful scowl on her pale features. "Not that I need to tell _you_ about that. You sure made her scream when you buried your face between her legs a few nights ago..."

Lissa choked on her reply, her eyes widening over fiercely blushing cheeks.

The new layer of pink staining Robin's face was harder to notice, but it was there, the fresh flush of violation leaving her seething in humiliation. Tharja had been _watching_ them. Spying on their most private time together. The beautiful memory they had made together was now stained, tainted. Filthy.

She had never felt so exposed in her life, and she had been completely naked in front of Tharja for what felt like hours.

Fortunately, the sorceress didn't care to dwell on the subject any longer... but any relief Robin derived from her silence was short-lived. She heard the whip sweep through the air, a false start that never came close to touching her, but her body braced seemingly on its own, knowing what was coming...

Her reward was a trail of blinding pain carved across her buttocks with a viciously swift crack.

"Aaagh-!"

_CRACK._ Again, crossing over the previous blow in an excruciating X, painting her ass with searing pink.

"W-wai-"

_CRACK._ Her back, again, biting deep and sending her reeling.

"Haah...!"

_CRACK._ Her thighs, scourging tender flesh, making her knees buckle beneath her.

"P-please..."

It took Robin a few moments to process the fact that she had spoken, the word dropping from her lips without her brain's approval, but willing or not, begging did her no good. The lash descended again, snapping through the air, whipping around Robin's rigid body and slashing into her bared breasts with force enough to make them bounce in their constricting prison.

The sound she made was half-sob and half-scream, but she was given no time to recover the merest semblance of poise before the air cracked again. Pain flared once more, another strip of blistering agony on top of a mass of dulling aches, catching around her waist and leaving a startling trail of angry pink from her navel to her spine, then _again, CRACK._ , against the right of her back and her shoulder right up to her straining arm, leaving her a whimpering, then _CRACK._ against her ass again, a horizontal sweep against both creamy cheeks, her stricken squeal echoing to the rafters...

"STOP!"

Lissa again? No, Robin dimly realized, her eyesight blurred with unshed tears. No, that had been her voice, but this time she was certain of it - she hadn't said a thing, her vocabulary reduced to cries and mewls. She hadn't... but her lips had moved, and her throat had made the sounds-

"No more."

It was _her_ shaking, shattered voice, and the words falling from her lips echoed her thoughts precisely, but Robin hadn't wanted to speak them. _Wasn't_ speaking them. Her mouth was moving on its own, pushing out sounds without her permission, as if someone were moving her like a puppet...

_...No._

~ ~ ~

Behind the pitiful frame of the bound, bare, beaten tactician, Tharja curled her fingers into forbidden patterns, black mist swirling in her pale palm.

"Please, no more," she bade Robin say, and the girl with the beautiful silver hair spoke the words as if reading from a script, the catch in her lovely voice artificial but convincing enough. "Please." Oh, she had longed to hear her Robin beg, and it was no less thrilling for the fact that Tharja herself was controlling her every syllable. "I can't..."

The words trailed away in a defeated sob, a twist of her fingertip choking her Robin into silence. Yes, this was certainly one of her favorite curses. When Lissa was _gone_ she and Robin would be getting a great deal of use from this.

"Had enough?" This time Tharja spoke with her own tongue, letting the well-used whip trail listlessly by her side as she trudged around to Robin's front, admiring the savage pink welt she had sliced into her prisoner's small but perfect breasts. The slowly reddening line had missed her nipples as it cleaved around her snowy curves, but left her bosoms painfully tender, a fact that she exploited with a probing fingertip. She chased the vivid line from right to left, pressing down and sliding over the mark, her hex locking Robin's teeth tightly shut but releasing its hold on her throat just enough to make her whimpers of distress genuine. "I could flog you all night long if you're up to it. Of course, if you're not, I could always spend some time on your darling Lissa instead..."

_"No."_

The defiant rage on Robin's face was all the tactician, but the word was Tharja's, coaxed from uncooperative lips with a pointed thought from the mage. She was in full control, could have made Robin's body do anything she wanted it if weren't for the ropes lashing her wrists to the rafters above... but there would be time for that later. So much time.

"So you _do_ want some more?" Tharja's smile was thin and morbid, the dread in Robin's tearful eyes fueling a lust in the dark witch that demanded pleasure and pain alike. "Brave girl. You are more than your princess deserves."

"Robin..." Lissa croaked, looking for all the world like she wanted to launch herself at Tharja's throat, the metal baubles hanging from her tormented nipples dancing with her gulping breaths. "Y-you don't have to..."

Again Tharja ignored Lissa's attempt at intervention, the midnight-haired witch bringing her whip behind her head with a wild florish, every golden adornment on her shapely body glittering in the candlelight as she turned. Then, with a snarl, she swung the lash in a brutal arc, whipping across her breasts so hard that her scream was choked into a breathless gasp. The thin, keening whine she released in the aftermath only emboldened the ghoulish mage, and the air split again as the whip flicked across her belly, then her waist, just above the thin nest of silver hair between her thighs...

Then she struck _there_ , bringing the lash upward in a small, swift arc, and Robin's howling scream made Lissa weep and Tharja shiver in delight.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Both Lissa and Robin spoke as one, blurting the same desperate words, but the tactician's mouth moved to the beat of Tharja's drum, her pleas convincingly tearful but completely artificial. Would she have begged for the pain to end, were she in full control of herself, or would she have stoically resisted for Lissa's sake? Tharja hungered to know... but the plan was more important, and she grew bored with making things more believable by having her bear more.

Her fingertips weaved the hex against her palm, trailing inky blackness against sickly skin, and Robin did her bidding, lowering her head to stare at dirt and forcibly lifted breasts crisscrossed with jagged pink, her lips sealed tight. She could have forced tears from her silver-haired pet, but the gesture proved unnecessary, the droplets already falling in a sparing, irregular rhythm, sprinkling floor and skin.

"You can't take any more?"

Robin remained silent, because Tharja willed it so.

"You want me to stop?"

A jerking nod, clipped and wordless. Tharja was rather proud of that one.

"Even though that means your Lissa will suffer in your place?"

Through the corners of her eyes, the witch watched Lissa closely, studying her reactions. The princess was staring at her lover, transfixed, uneasy, waiting for the verdict to fall like the blade of a guillotine.

Tharja made her wait. Curled a finger, stilled Robin's throat, held her head down in a facsimile of shame. Drawing out the moment.

"N-no-"

The whip slashed out, as if Tharja had been waiting for the slightest sound of denial, as if she hadn't _forced_ Robin to say it. A new scream, a new sob, and a new scarlet line carved across her breasts, missing the left nipple but finding the right, drawing no blood but leaving fierce pain branded across her skin.

"STOP!"

This time it was only Robin who spoke, Lissa remaining strickenly silent. Perhaps the pigtailed princess was finally coming to grips with what was at stake if her Robin chose escape.

"You're sure?" Only one question this time, one chance to take it back, and Tharja denied Robin that opportunity, making her head jerk up and down in a miserable nod.

Lissa's sob lifted the dark mage's heart.

A merciful woman might have left Robin to hang there in her shame, but Tharja was not a merciful woman. Her hand wound itself through the tactician's silver locks, fingers slithering into place and hooking into her tresses, lifting her obsession's tear-streaked face to stare at the girl she had just been forced to betray. Her silence was enforced, but the horror in her dark eyes was all Robin, and Tharja lapped it up with cold, cruel satisfaction, pinning the beaten woman's eyelids open with her hex and forcing her to look at her bedraggled, exquisitely hurting lover.

Then, she leaned into Robin and pressed a kiss against her lips that the tactician was not permitted to refuse.

Long. Deep. Hot and wet, the mage's warm lips dancing sinuously against Robin's, her tongue venturing inward and exploring, knowing that no bite was coming. She _could_ have made Robin kiss her back, instilled her body with a hunger for Tharja that her heart would never feel, but there would be a thousand kisses shared between them later, and right now, having her captive's mouth remain tepidly, uncooperatively still stoked the fires of her lust to unbelievable heights.

Half-giddy from the high of the unwilling kiss, Tharja let Robin's head drop, a twist of finger against palm ensuring the twin-tailed girl's lips clamped shut, still glistening with the witch's saliva.

Then, she swept around to face the wide-eyed Lissa, her cloak swirling behind her shapely frame, the harsh leather coil of the whip snapping up into her hand with a flick of her wrist.

"You heard her."


	5. Chapter 5

Lissa hung by her wrists like a broken marionette, silent and still.

Tattered, ruined lingerie hung loose from her small frame, exposing bare skin stained with vicious red marks. Feathery blonde hair, no longer bound up in pigtails and headdress, streamed down her lowered face to crest her shoulders in a messy heap as limp as she was. Her shins were soiled from her time on her knees, dirt clotted against her skin, her toes dragging against the earthen floor as she was held suspended above by her arms, right on the spot where her lover had endured similar punishment.

Her eyes clouded by a blur of desperate tears, Robin could barely make her Lissa out, but she didn't need to see her to know her condition.

"I guess you didn't love her that much after all." The words were whispered against her ear from behind, bitter and poisonous, and Robin stiffened against the support pole as Tharja's breath warmed her shoulder, the rough wood grinding into her naked back as her flesh moved against it.

Just as Lissa had taken her place, Robin had taken Lissa'. The same ropes that had anchored the little princess in place were now wrapped around Robin's body, binding her against the pillar, forcing her to face her lover as she endured her punishment. Completely under the witch's spell, she had been powerless to resist as her arms were taken around the pole, her wrists crossed and tightly bound, a thick cloth shoved deep inside her mouth now that her tongue was no longer useful and bound there with yet more biting rope. Unlike Lissa, she was kept on her feet rather than her knees, but had it not been for her restraints her legs would not have had the strength to bear her.

Her stomach alone felt as if it had been cast from lead, weighing down her soul.

Lissa had cried. Screamed. The sounds echoed within Robin's head long after they had faded, punctuated by the crack of the whip, over and over and over... but never once had Lissa spoken. Never had she given an indication of her feelings towards her Robin, never even _looking_ at her.

Did she know? Did she suspect that Tharja had cursed her, had forced her to speak the words that had condemned Lissa to the kiss of the whip? Or...?

A warm hand reached around from behind Robin, cupping her naked breast, squeezing the mound between sweaty fingers and making her breath hitch in revulsion. "I don't think she's going to wake up for a while," Tharja murmured, her soft black hair grazing Robin's shoulder, smelling of a thick, heady musk unlike any the strategist had ever encountered. "Why don't we take a bit of... _us_ time?"

With the chafing rope tight between her lips, binding her head to the post at her back, she couldn't even turn her face to share her hateful glare with the woman who had so dearly earned it. Against her will, against all rationality, her body was beginning to respond to the unwelcome fondling, a faint warmth stirring in her breast and between her legs. Her treacherous body _liked_ this. Could barely tell the difference between Tharja's hand and Lissa's.

The twinge of primal excitement made her sick.

What did she have to do to end this? At first she had hoped to thwart Tharja somehow, then to go back to living her life with Lissa and the rest of the Shepherds, but that was likely no longer an option now. This night had left scars, on both of them, and not just the physical kind.

Now, she would settle for saving Lissa. She had been through enough, and every time her barely focused eyes went to the girl's broken shape, her heart felt as if it had been ripped in two.

"You don't seem very happy." Tharja slid around her from behind, pushing herself against Robin at every turn, her breasts rubbing against the tactician's back and arm before settling into place against Robin's own chest, bare against barely clothed, modest against large, hot against hot. The witch's face was barely an inch from hers, midnight hair shadowing her pale face, lips pursed in displeasure. "It's because of her, isn't it?"

The look Robin gave her could have withered the hardiest of flowers.

"Are you afraid to face her when she wakes?" The sorceress pressed herself against Robin's body, welding with her from neck to toe, her bosom pushing into the tactician's chest so tightly that it stole her breath away. Her scent was overwhelming, sweat mingled with whatever unidentifiable _stuff_ was seeping from her hair, her mouth hot and wet as it pressed a slobbery kiss against Robin's nose before working its way down to her parted lips. "You know what she's going to think, don't you?"

She hated herself for shedding a tear, but there was no hiding her despair from Tharja. She had orchestrated it, after all. Defeated, she squeezed her eyes closed, blocking out the witch's gloating visage and the world around them.

Again, she endured a searing kiss through her gag, Tharja's lips capturing hers without heed to the cloth and the rope protruding from within, soft and warm but cruel as a dagger to the heart. It seemed to go on forever, that hungry mouth devouring her face, Tharja's tongue lapping at her uncooperative lips as if searching for an opening it could infiltrate. She could neither kiss back nor refuse her, and the feeling of being used like an _object_ fired her resentment anew, smothering the self-pity that had been hollowing out a place in her heart.

Did Tharja even _want_ her? Or did she just want an immobilized plaything who _looked_ like her?

"Do you want me to wake her up?" The moment the kiss was broken, Tharja was speaking poison again, her dark eyes glittering with sadistic knowing. "I could ask you for her. If she still loves you."

 _She does_ , the defiant side of Robin longed to spit in her face, but even had her mouth not been clogged by cloth and rope, her heart and her coldly rational mind could not be so sure.

"I could hurt her more, if you want." Tharja noticed Robin's tearful eyes cracking open and pressed her face close once more, hunting her like an animal. "I could make you agree to all sorts of things. I could make you do all sort of things. To her." Her hand slipped southward, palming its way down the valley between Robin's breasts, sweeping over her belly until it found her crotch and slipped within. One single stroke in just the right place made Robin gasp through her gag, her eyes sharpening in violated outrage, but Tharja continued to speak as if her glare meant nothing. "I could make you beat her. Fuck her. Or me. I'm sure I could make your regret convincing, of course, but I wonder how many little betrayals she could take before she could only see the self-preserving coward in you?"

 _Lissa knows me better than that._ That Robin knew for a fact, but how much would even her princess have to witness Robin say and do before she changed her mind? How much faith could her lover possibly have?

"I could break her completely, you know." Tharja's finger squirmed against her, digging between her legs, and Robin clamped her mouth tight around her gag, her body stiffening as the witch's digit rubbed against her inner walls. This wasn't exactly her first time with another woman's fingers down there, but how was Tharja already better than Lissa at pushing her buttons? Was it part of the curse? There was _no way in hell_ it was desire. "We could break her," the raven-haired sorceress purred, glancing to Lissa, then back to Robin, as if conspiring with her. "Her mind. Her body. We could ruin her, if she isn't ruined already. Would you like to do it together?"

All of the revulsion and hatred nesting in Robin's soul crept into her eyes, and her bitter, anguished stare was answer enough for Tharja.

"Then there is only one path you can take." Her finger withdrew from Robin's folds, trailing up to her face, wiping sticky wetness beneath the tactician's nostrils. Then came the other hand, this one gripping a knife, ornate and gold and almost certainly ancient, and the disgust in Robin's eyes was overwhelmed by fear.

Tharja chuckled, bringing the flat of the knife against Robin's vulnerable throat, the metal strangely warm. "Don't fret. I'm not about to kill you after all the trouble I've gone to." She planted another kiss against the tactician's cheek, smiling into her skin as Robin huffed in displeasure. "I'm very possessive when it comes to what's mine."

The blade glinted in the candlelight as she retracted it. "Do you know anything about blood curses?"

Robin did not, but the name alone made her dread. She was not exactly enthusiastic about curses, and the inclusion of 'blood' as a descriptor did little to change her mind. She tried to shake her head, and the tiny jerking motion the ropes would allow was seemingly sufficient for Tharja, because the witch continued to speak, turning the blade about before Robin's eyes. "A strand of your pretty hair was enough to bind you to my will for the moment, but the effect will fade, with time. I'll have more than long enough to have you defile your Lissa, but I am seeking something more... long term with you."

Her voice took on a bitter note. "Unfortunately, that requires both your blood, and your co-operation... but you will be willing to provide both, now won't you, Robin?"

What was she saying? She wanted her _help_?! Robin would have sooner blasted the delusional witch into cinders, had she her spellbook. Instead, she snarled in Tharja's face, curses of an entirely different kind half-smothered by her revolting gag, but audible all the same.

Tharja was unfazed. "Then we break Lissa together, and you can have your freedom along with the memories of how you bought it."

Ice gathered in Robin's gut. _So that's your game_.

She could protect Lissa if she were willing to sacrifice herself.

Her shrewd mind was already studying the problem from every angle, but this time there were no clever ways around her plight. If an ordinary curse was enough to let Tharja control her like a showman's puppet, a blood curse was likely to be far, far more severe in its effects. Perhaps permanent. She could be signing herself over to complete slavery, for _the rest of her life._ Complete obedience to the woman who had tortured her and Lissa without a shadow of remorse.

It would mean the end of her time as Lissa's lover and the Shepherds' tactician. The life she had built for herself in Ylisse since her awakening would be gone, and a new existence beneath the thumb of an unstable sadist would begin. She couldn't even fight off _this_ curse, let alone a compulsion woven from her very blood. She would be a toy. A slave.

Was this what Tharja had been after all along? Utter dominion of her? The thought made her recoil, as if she had been handed a coal straight from a fire, but could she refuse?

One look at Lissa through unclouded eyes told Robin that she could not. The little blonde was still unconscious, her body limp, her head drooping low, completely vulnerable. Every bit the puppet that Robin was, though her strings were very real. She was ragged, marked and shattered, and Tharja was not about to show her hint of mercy.

No, Robin's options were even more limited than they appeared. Surrender herself to Tharja, or watch Lissa suffer? There was no real choice. The witch had Robin, and she knew it.

"You'll do it?" the sorceress prompted her, almost childishly eager, hovering over her like a vulture awaiting death. "Don't worry. A drop of blood is enough, and your grudging consent will do. Magical control is insufficient, but old-fashioned coercion will work."

The blade came up, and Robin flinched, but Tharja didn't cut her. Instead, she worked the knife between skin and rope, slicing away the cord wrapped around the tactician's head. "Tell me you consent," she hissed, snatching at the wad of cloth inside Robin's mouth and plucking it out, dropping the saliva-sodden rags to the floor. "Either you swear yourself to me, now and forever, or whatever nightmare your sweet Lissa is exploring right now will _pale_ before what she experiences when she wakes. Or do I need to prove to you that I am not bluffing?"

Again the knife turned in Tharja's hand, just as before, but Robin didn't miss the new meaning. "No," she whispered, forcing herself to swallow her bile, briefly surprised that her voice was her own once more. "I... I understand. I'll do what you ask."

She had not been expecting Tharja to frown, but the sorceress did, her dark eyes flitting resentfully to Lissa, then back again, as if to ask, _you care for her that much_? However, when she did speak, her words were almost sickly sweet, her displeasure forgotten. "You'll be mine?"

"...Yes."

What else could she do? Refuse? Stay silent? All roads led to this eventually, but the others were paved with pain, for Lissa and for herself. She couldn't selfishly gamble Lissa's well-being on the slim possibility that Chrom and the others would find them.

No, Robin loved Lissa with all of her heart, and that left only one possibility.

Perhaps this would be her atonement.

"I'll be yours."

Deep red blood glistened at the tip of Tharja's pointer finger. She'd cut herself already, just the tiniest scratch, but the sight of the crimson bead made Robin's stomach twist. The witch's other hand brought the knife to bear, holding the blade over Robin's shoulder, her eyes glinting with feral delight. "Yes, you will."


	6. Chapter 6

The cellar air was thick with the scent of burned wax, lingering in a pungent haze, but the candles had long since burned out and taken their flickering light with them. All was as still and quiet and dark as a crypt, cold and lifeless.

The grip of the ropes barely left Lissa room to shiver.

She had been bound in one way or another since Tharja had abducted her, strung up by her wrists or lashed to the pillar at the centre of the room, but the snug net of cords that ensnared her now were crueler than anything she had endured up until now, forcing her into a tight little ball from which she could find no escape. The tattered but stubbornly sturdy ropes kept her trapped on her knees, her legs tied bent to keep her that way, her upper body forced so far forward that her small, bare breasts were pressed flat against her thighs. The ropes were _everywhere_ , holding her down, painfully binding her wrists at her shoulder-blades, snaking around her chest and between her legs to rub and chafe in places that flushed and sore...

Tharja might have been long gone from the dingy cellar, but her sadistic will lingered in every knot. Lissa was under no illusions that she could escape these bonds on her own, and discomfort strangled the will to move out of her every time she dared to try.

Her head bowed so low that her forehead rested against the soil, her lank, dirty hair torn loose from her favored pigtails to shroud her face, she was completely unmoving, the faint, shallow draw and release of breath through her silken cloth gag the only sign that she was alive at all. Everything hurt, from her body to her heart, but for all the discomfort of the ropes digging deep into her skin and the bright red marks all over her body still burning like naked flame, her mind was on only one person, and it was neither Tharja nor herself.

_Robin..._

Her lover was gone from the cellar now, spirited away by the heartless witch to gods-knew-where, but Lissa couldn't close her weary eyes without seeing Robin's tear-streaked face looking back at her. The torment-strained cries of the silver-haired woman echoed through her ears, a macabre tapestry of screaming and whimpering punctuated by the crack of a phantom whip, haunting her long after all had faded to silence.

Worst of all, her traitorous memories forced her to witness _that_ moment over and over again, no matter how hard she tried to block it out.

The broken, jerking nod Robin had given Tharja to finally escape her torture had been a tiny movement, but it had been enough to bring Lissa's world crashing down around her. It wasn't that she begrudged Robin the chance to escape the whip, after she had already endured so much just to protect her, of _course_ it wasn't. Every vicious crack of the lash against Robin's writhing flesh had hurt Lissa almost as much as it had the tactician herself, emotionally if not physically, and in the depths of her anguish she had dared think that she would have done _anything_ to protect Robin, even bear the pain herself.

Yet when the time had come for them to trade places, she had felt nothing but cold, sick fear, gouging into her stomach like a blade and leaving her hollow.

It wasn't Robin's fault. Lissa knew that. She had told herself more times than she could count. Everything she had gone through was Tharja's fault and nobody else's. The whip was wielded by her hand and hers alone... yet now, the silence gnawing at her soul, the pain of the lash slowly receding and leaving her a quivering mess of aches and misery, she couldn't stop her mind from returning to the moment Robin had given in. Turning the memory over, again and again, the corrosive bitterness stewing within her heart slowly boiling over.

Eventually, her resentment swelled enough to accommodate them both.

~ ~ ~

At first glance, the basement appeared to be entirely empty. All , the stone walls and splintered rafters housing nothing. Had one wandered through the deserted homestead by happenstance, it would have been easy to ignore the vacant chamber and move on.

Instead, the shabby wooden stairs began to creak beneath heavy leather boots, and the darkness gave way before flickering candlelight once again.

A lantern at his side, a worried frown on his somber face, Chrom descended the staircase with his free hand on the hilt of his sheathed Falchion, scanning his dimly-illuminated surroundings with a warrior's caution. Something was _wrong_ here - he could sense it, almost taste it, and though he couldn't put a name to it, the atmosphere left his stomach curdled with dread.

It took him a few moments to find the small, pale shape hunched over by the support post in the centre of the cold dirt floor, shaking with sobs.

The feathery blonde hair was what he noticed first, hanging loose over the girl's bowed face, dirty and disheveled but familiar enough to send a mighty pang of fear through the prince's chest. He had seen it a thousand times before, wrapped in white and shaped into lively pigtails, but even lank and lifeless he recognised those locks, and for the first time the sight of them filled him with anxiety.

_Lissa?_

Chrom's heart seized, as if cold death itself had grasped it. Was it his precious sister? It was difficult to be sure, even as his uncertain footsteps carried him closer and closer. He barely heard Sumia and Frederick descending the stairs behind him, his full attention on the small, hunched, naked form at the middle of the room, trying to make sense of what he saw before him.

Her head lifted at the sound of his boots scuffing against the earth, rising a full inch from the dirt before the rope tied around her neck stopped her progress with a rasping jolt. As the curtain of listless blonde hair shifted, Chrom saw a familiar face, wet with tears and tightly gagged with torn white cloth that had once been her lingerie.

_Sister!_

He scrambled to her side, setting the lantern down on the dirt floor, his fingers flying to the first knots they could find. He didn't need to ask who had done this to her, and he didn't care why. If Tharja had been here before him right now he would have struck her head from her shoulders. The memories from the day he had taken the witch into the Shepherds mocked him. He had _trusted_ her. He had convinced his suspicious army to trust her. And in return...

"Sister! I'm here..."

He paid no mind to the horrified gasps behind him as his wife and his lieutenant arrived to behold the sordid scene. His jaw clenched tight enough to grind his teeth to splinters, he continued his work, tears conspiring to blind him as he pulled the ruined garments from Lissa's mouth and seized again at the bundle of knots nestled against her back. His hands quivering with rage, his stomach turning in sickened disgust, he barely restrained himself from tearing the ropes off of his sister with all of his might. "You're all right, Lissa. You're okay..."

The princess still couldn't lift her head to look at her brother, and with his hands shaking so violently, Chrom didn't trust himself to cut the ropes at her throat away. He could barely take his eyes off of her back, her creamy skin scarred crimson beneath the ropes, the cold certainty of what had caused the vivid marks stoking the fire of his rage. "I'm here, Lissa," he choked out, trembling fingers fighting with the first of many knots. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm going to get you out of this."

In the corners of his vision, he saw Sumia settle at his side, Frederick kneeling across from him, but neither knight could find room to help him unpick the knots without getting in his way, and he paid them no mind. They spoke, but he barely heard the words, barely felt his wife's small hand on his shoulder. All he could think about was Lissa, and the scheming witch who had done this to her...

...and Emmeryn, the sister he had already failed, her face haunting the back of his mind like a vengeful spirit.

His hands fumbled. Tensed. Stilled.

His older sister was dead, and now his younger sister was in front of him, naked, bound and scarred, weeping brokenly into the dirt. He had failed _both_ of them.

The weight of it fell upon him like an avalanche, threatening to crush him, but he forced his trembling hands to move, picking at the knots and working them loose as if each one might absolve him. Lissa came first. He could wallow in guilt and dream of vengeance later, when his sister was safe.

"Lissa..."

~ ~ ~

"Robin..."

The discordant sing-song of Tharja's honeyed voice carried through the inn room like a sickly-sweet breeze, and the silver-haired girl, seated at the small table at the other side of the room, robotically rose to her feet without uttering a sound.

Her dark eyes were lifelessly blank, an empty slate, but in the depths of her pretty head a brilliant mind recoiled in revulsion.

"Come to me, my love."

The words were simple enough, but the curse Tharja had woven through every corner of Robin's mind sensed the intentions behind them and forced her body to obey. Her possessor no longer needed to consciously manipulate her like a puppet on strings - it felt like a tiny piece of Tharja's will had been seeded inside her head, overriding the commands Robin gave her own body, leaving her passenger and prisoner in her own mind as her feet carried her towards the bed where Tharja awaited. As her hands worked her hooded robe from her shoulders and dumped it on the floor, clumsily tore off her boots and worked her trousers down her legs, stripped her tunic over her head...

By the time she reached the side of the bed, she was wearing only the thin, lacy undergarments Tharja had chosen for her. The witch knew Robin's sizes, of course - she knew everything about Robin's body by now, if not her heart - but the hazy scraps of black cloth barely concealed a thing, hitching her small breasts upward in scandalously tiny cups, hiding her intimate places behind panties almost too small and thin to count as clothing. It was the kind of lingerie one wore for a lover, and Tharja had made sure that Robin knew it when she watched her plaything put it on. All day, its soft, tight embrace had reminded her of what was going to happen to her tonight.

She had wanted nothing more than to run, but her body had obeyed only Tharja as the two of them slipped deep into Plegian lands, the blood curse more restrictive than any rope or leash. Now, she was here at the foot of Tharja's bed, offering herself up to the woman she despised, and there were no more thoughts of escape.

The mage watched her from her place sprawled across the bed on her back, sinfully naked, lazily propping her tilted head on one arm and running her tongue against scarlet lips in delight. A twinkle of desire had lingered in her wicked eyes all day, but now it swelled into a black inferno that promised to consume Robin, a feral lust that made the genius tactician long to hide the secrets of her body behind her hands. Of course, the curse denied her even that liberty, keeping her arms hanging uselessly at her sides, permitting Tharja to enjoy the view as she pleased...

"You know, I'm almost glad you took such a shine to Lissa, sweet Robin."

Robin's expression didn't shift, but behind the mask of tranquil emptiness the curse left her with, her heart clutched in sick, angry, guilty grief. She wondered if the Shepherds had found Lissa yet.

"Before that little hussy sank her claws into you, I'd almost written off my chances." Tharja remained where she was, reclining in comfort, her fingernail teasing her startlingly red lips as her eyes traced the almost scrawny form of the silver-haired woman from her wantonly-displayed breasts to her... in truth, it was mostly her breasts. They were small, girlish, but Tharja couldn't stop staring at them, imagining how they would taste now that she had made her servant bathe. "I'd started to think that your desires were for men alone. I had _almost_ accepted that you could never love me as I love you, but then..."

She beckoned, and Robin felt her body move without her consent once more, climbing onto the bed and crawling towards Tharja on all fours, a degradingly intimate touch that made her cheeks flush pink in shame. She felt her near-nakedness all the more keenly as she closed in on Tharja's nude body, the witch's legs lewdly spread open to present her damp folds, her glossy midnight hair veiling the pure white pillowcases in darkness, and worse, she felt her own body tingling in anticipation of sex that her mind recoiled from.

The open-handed slap snapped her head to one side, stopping her in her tracks.

"Then I saw you with _her_ ," Tharja spat as Robin sank face-first onto the quilt, her cheek throbbing, her vision filled with glittering stars, her ears ringing from the brutal impact. Uncaring hands flipped her over onto her back as she lay there like a discarded doll, the mage's pale, twisted face coming into view, looming over her like a guillotine's blade threatening to fall. Tharja was on her knees now, her plump white breasts hanging above Robin's face, her red lips curled in a vicious snarl. "And I knew that you hadn't just shut me out of your affections because I wasn't born with a _cock_."

Robin's heart thundered in her chest. She wondered if Tharja could feel its hammering beat as her pallid hand reached between the tactician's girlish breasts and tore her skimpy bra from her body, ruining the garment the witch herself had bought.

"Why _her_?!" Tharja hissed the words into Robin's face, warm spittle and hot breath assaulting her as she lay there, helpless. "Why that little bitch and not me?! _I_ loved you! I should have been with you! I should have been the one in your bed every night! _What did I do wrong?!_ "

Robin's face stared up at her, blank and still as porcelain, no matter how hard the former tactician strained to speak.

For a long, lingering moment, Tharja stared right back at her, emotion flickering over her ghoulishly lovely face. Rage. Frustration. Something close to regret, but not quite.

"This isn't what I wanted," she whispered, stroking Robin's motionless face as a mother might comfort her child. A dollmaker and her broken doll. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to _love_ me."

Robin's dull eyes watched her, offering nothing.

"This isn't what I wanted," Tharja repeated bitterly, her face soullessly hardening, "but it will do."

She lifted her knee from the bed and swung herself on top of Robin without further ceremony, bringing her pussy down onto the silver-haired girl's waiting face. Warm, hot flesh pressed itself against Robin's mouth, flooding her nostrils with Tharja's thick scent, and though her mind recoiled in primal disgust as she was smothered in sticky wetness, she was powerless to stop her mouth from opening and her tongue from slithering forth, greeting Tharja's slit with an adventurously lengthy lick.

"Good girl." Tharja stared down at what she could still see of her obliging lover's face, hands rising to cup and squeeze her ample breast as her sadistic eyes met Robin's hollow gaze. The poor girl was licking up a storm down there already, a faithful, obedient servant, and the eager strokes of the silver-haired woman's clever tongue were certainly having the desired effect on her.

Then, Robin's hands hooked around her mistress' thighs, drawing her even closer, and for a blissful moment Tharja forgot that it was her own subconscious pulling her lover's strings. She _almost_ believed that her Robin was doing this of her own free will, not merely a slave to a curse, and she could have _kept_ deluding herself were it not for those vacant eyes of her, staring into infinity, barely seeing her at all.

Perhaps a blindfold.

~ ~ ~

The gentle softness of her nightgown was blessing enough after hours spent naked in the dirt, but Lissa hugged her thick blanket around her small body all the same, savoring its comforting warmth as she watched the bright full moon through the castle window.

Her room was lonely, her bed empty. Robin was perhaps in Tharja's bed tonight.

If her beloved Robin were here right now, Lissa didn't know what she would have said, or what she might have done. She didn't know what to think, or how to feel, or what had been going through Robin's head in that cellar when she had given Lissa over to Tharja and the whip.

All she knew was that she wanted Robin back. The rest would sort itself out.

She sniffled, despair taking root once again, but she didn't look away from the moonlit landscape spread out below her. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her body stained with the marks left by rope and lash, but still she found the strength to face the cruel, heartless world and hope for better. Chrom and the Shepherds were still out looking, and they might find Robin yet.

However, she couldn't ignore the other side of the coin, as much as she might have liked to. Tharja had a head start on them, and if the dark mage planned to take Robin to Plegia, following them would be problematic, to say the least. They had had more than enough time to disappear if Tharja really wanted to, and now that the witch had all that she had ever really wanted from the Shepherds, Lissa couldn't imagine the foul woman lingering in Ylisse any longer...

Her heart twisting in her chest, she bit her lip to stifle another sob, wrapping her blanket even tighter around herself and weathering the renewed wave of sadness that crashed over her. It felt like losing Emmeryn all over again.

At least Robin was still alive.

Probably.

_I forgive you. I forgive you. Please... just come home._

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published between May 5, 2016, and March 7, 2017.


End file.
